It was but a Christian duty that I should instruct and edify the poor benighted heathen. No one besides us two were near to witness the good deed; so as he sat on his haunches and continued gazing up into my face expectantly, I slung my satchel on the handle-bars, emptied into it a few things from my pockets, levelled off a little sandy space on the ground, and showed "Hanson" by a single object lesson how the "clevah" thing was done.
The benighted one took very kindly to my humble Christian endeavour.
"Well, 'Hanson,'" said I, taking up my satchel and replacing the articles, "do you think you could manage it? Tell you what; suppose you stand alonga upside down, then this other fat—one stick of tobacco I give it. Savee?"
"Hanson" saveed.
"Me do it all right, I think," he said, scrambling from his squat, and valorously stepping over to the small clear space.
There he went down on all fours, and jambing his head on the ground sought to invert himself. He was far from succeeding the first time he tried, or the second, but needed not the slightest word of encouragement from me to try and try and try again.
"Here 'Hanson,'" said I at last, compassionately, "knock off. You'll be suffocating yourself. Besides, I want to ask you which way track go."
But he had taken it very much to heart, this feat of standing on his head, and was bent on its achievement.
"Which way track go?" I said again.
"Me do it this time all right, I think;" and was "this time" just as near success as before.